One interesting job-hunting tactic I've heard about being used successfully in the marketing field: buying Google ads based on the keywords of the names of the CEOs and hiring managers you want to target, then linking those ads to personalized cover letters/intros/resumes.

Because people -- especially in marketing -- like to do ego searches of themselves on Google.

@Kristin: I wouldn't say "resistance." People are either willing and able to help you or need your services, or not. I'm not being a jerk about it. And I'm not one of those "open connectors" who'll just connect with anyone even though I know nothing about them.

Plus, sometimes things just fall into place. You have a conversation with somebody, "Hey, it just so happens I do that," and it goes from there.

The primary usefulness of LinkedIn, for me, is allowing me to connect with people who would be otherwise uncomfortable connecting with me on Facebook (or vice versa), while also allowing me to maintain an additional social presence. For me, LinkedIn is useful, but largely redundant with FB and Twitter. But that's okay, because breadth can be helpful.

When you sought new work and clients through Facebook, did you ever encounter resistance from the people you connected with? How did your experiences using both LinkedIn and Facebook differ from each other?

Because paying for placement of the user's CV in front of the approrpriate eyeballs is what counts, don'tcha know. Cos. don't actually want the right candidate with requisite knowledge, skill sets, abilities & education, just deep pockets to pay LinkedIn.

Interesting article, Kristin. LinkedIn is a really powerful professional tool. We at www.ProseMedia.com use LinkedIn for a lot of different purposes, and hopefully these new features will greatly increase the its effectiveness in social media. Thanks for sharing!

I don't care much for pictures, but the keyword tweaking was interesting. Of course, by offering this kind of help, more people start using those keywords, this weaking their power in searches. Kind of a circular thing really.

Either way, LinkedIn has developed a lot since it was first just an overgrown contact book, and the activity stream is kind of nice, along with seeing how your own posts are read and shared. I tend to use LinkedIn as a first port of call when I'm going to interview somebody for a job. It's also tremendously useful for keeping in touch with people after they change jobs.

Regarding Facebook, I guess if I maintained a "professional" Facebook profile, perhaps I might find work there, but I keep Facebook pretty much entirely personal; I have no work colleagues friended, for example.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.